Jane Eyre 简爱 Chapter 23

A SPLENDID Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime;  hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted ², contrasted well with the sunny hue ³ of the cleared meadows between., ,On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering ⁴ wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden., ,It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:- 'Day its fervid ⁵ fires had wasted,' and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched ⁶ summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state- pure of the pomp of clouds- spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven., , ,I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent ⁹- that of a cigar- stole from some window; I saw the library casement ¹⁰ open a hand-breadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard ¹¹. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech ¹² avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding ¹³ walk, bordered with laurels ¹⁴ and terminating in a giant horse- chestnut ¹⁵, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned ¹⁷, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed ¹⁸ there by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed-not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance ¹⁹., ,Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense ²⁰: this new scent is neither of shrub ²¹ nor flower; it is- I know it well- it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden ²² with ripening ²³ fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy ²⁴ recess ²⁵; he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me., ,He did not seem a whit concerned.他看来毫不在乎 。,a pair of glasses with tinted lenses 一副有色镜片眼镜